We have become indentured. Our new mistress has her own page. Look for Smudge up on the header, and there you will find recordings of our induction into servitude.
Category Archives: Nature
World Elephant Day, August 12. Some Happiness for You…
Yesterday was World Elephant Day. Elephant Nature Park and Foundation put up some of the most beautiful photos I’ve seen of elephants and elephant love, featuring some of the inhabitants of ENP. Please go to the link below and enjoy some elephant happiness:
HERE THEY ARE
Faa Mai and Dok Mai having a blast ditch-diving at Elephant Nature Park.
Welcome to New Zealand – Please Don’t Kill Us!!!
Elephant Lullaby for Faa Mai – Who Snores Through It!!
Whenever she can, Lek Chailert, founder of Elephant Nature Park, sings a lullaby to Faa Mai, who was born at the park and thinks that Lek is her human mummy. From what I gather, the flapping of the rag resembles the flapping of a mother elephant’s ears or tail.
Check it out HERE
Faa Mai being told off for stealing food.
Tiny House Living – Life Without a Television. The Ice – It comes!!
A lot of people gasp with shock when I tell them we have no t.v.
“Did you see blah blah blah last night…?”
“Nope. Haven’t got a television.”
“What??!!”
I do caregiving for a living, so I stay for two days and two nights in a house each week. But even then I’m still not tempted to stare at the goggle-box. Unless there’s a good documentary on, or Bones – about the only drama I like to see regularly, because her autistic-type personality has a train-smash sort of fascination to it, and the other characters make me laugh. The other exception being America’s Next Top Model, but that’s because I like watching the photo shoots that they come up with. In between the shoots (when they’re bitching at each other about who should be doing the dishes or what a cow so-and-so is) I usually wander off and hand out meds or empty catheter bags or something else so much more fascinating.
It’s no hardship though, having no t.v. We do have the internet, after all, which can keep us amused for hours. Any question you can possibly come up with, Google will find an answer to it somewhere. Which is how I know that steam rollers don’t roll steam… Continue reading
Forest? What Forest?! Whoops – Somebody Took It While We Weren’t Looking…
Yeah well, I tried eating people, but it just didn’t agree with my digestive system…
Most of us humans have at least a small fascination with elephants. And most of us know that forest-dwelling elephants need forests. I bet what a lot of people don’t know is that forests need elephants.
Due to their Inefficient Digestive Systems (IDS) *TM, elephants only digest around 40-something percent of what they eat. The rest gets dumped out the opposite ends of their bodies, if you get my gist. Having personally dealt with this end product, so to speak, I can attest to the fact that the matter that they have put into their chewing ends comes out darned near as fresh as when it went in. In other words, seeds from the plants they have eaten remain pretty much intact and are deposited wherever the elephants go, in nice tidy fertilized packages, ready to grow again. Continue reading
And Now For a Bit of Culchure, New Zealand-Style. A Little Blues Song Wot I Wrote – The Tariki Schoolhouse
Mount Taranaki, West Coast, North Island. Also featuring in the foreground, ‘Betsy’, of New Zealand Bovine Models Inc, TM. The Tariki Schoolhouse lives under this mountain.
I have come to realise that I’ve been disgustingly inactive on my blog recently. You can’t blame me though – it’s midsummer here in New Zealand and there are many things to do other than sit at one’s computer writing (or raving, in my case). Like go camping, or socialize, or get into your garden, or socialize. Or go riding around town on your bicycle and break out your Mohawk Riding Helmet (TM). Or socialize… Continue reading
Happy New Year and Some Elephant Gossip
Gather ye around and I’ll tell ye the latest…
Hi all. I haven’t posted for a little while as we’ve been pretty busy around here with the silly season and all that it brings. I want to wish you all a Happy New Year, or Joyous Pagan Festivities, or whatever peels yer bananas.
To those in America and England, I’m sorry to hear that you’re rather cold at the moment, so I won’t rave on about what a perfect summer we’re having, as I sit outside on a beautifully starry night enjoying the wee solar lights and the humidity – that would just be cruel and I won’t do that to you. Nor will I mention the plums and avocados raining down upon us on a daily basis or Rustle the Hedgehog snuffling about feasting on them or indeed the Zinnia and Cosmos flowering madly outside my bedroom window. Far be it from me to tease you in such a hard-hearted manner. Continue reading
Camera Rambles: Moa the Cat in Catnip Ecstacy
It’s that stuff again, isn’t it…?
After posting the article on catnip today, (read that here) I grabbed my camera and went to visit Moa with a piece of catnip. These were the results: Continue reading
Factoids: Catnip – The Drug of Choice for SOME Felines
Otis Friday. I was on her staff for 16 wonderful years. Beautifully-natured, but still happy to take a swipe at me from behind the shower curtain.
When I was growing up, we always had two cats in the house, so I quite like having them around. They’re funny little critters – total mercenaries one minute then all furry and purry the next. They’ll never deign to fetch a ball for you, yet they’ll play “I want to be on that side of the door, no – that side, no – that side…” with the patience of an ancient Mah Jong player. They’ll lay on their backs all innocent-like and invite you to scratch their soft, warm stomach fur then suddenly change their minds and gouge holes in your birthday suit. It’s an ongoing mystery as to why we put up with their mercurial little souls, but once you’ve been a staff member of a cat-keeping household, you’ll always look at them with a certain amount of fascination. Continue reading
raveburbleblog 
Mount Ngauruhoe, Central Plateau, North Island, New Zealand. Ngauruhoe erupted 45 times in the 20th century, most recently in 1977. Now you can see why ‘Lord of the Rings’ was made in New Zealand… 🙂
We’re used to seeing ‘road snails’ travelling in our country, and although we’re really pleased to see travellers coming here, it’s common for us locals to heave a sigh when we pull up behind a ‘movan’ on the road. We know our country is beautiful, but you have to know that while you’re bumbling along trying to manoeuvre our twisty, hilly roads and look out the window at our gaspworthy scenery at the same time, it’s very possible we’re stuck behind you, envisioning various scenarios IN WHICH WE STRANGLE YOU and toss you over one of our exquisitely scenic hillsides. You see, you might be on holiday, but we’re trying to get to work, to the hospital, return our late dvds to the video store, or any other number of crucial scenarios that occur in everyday life.
New Zealand roads don’t have a lot of passing lanes, you see. So until they invent cars that have helicopter rotors attached to them, we often have to wait for many slow and laborious minutes before we can pass you and get on with our missions. And if you times that by three or four camper vans per trip, then perhaps you can begin to comprehend our strangling fantasies. It’s nothing personal, you understand, we just want you to MOVE OVER!!
What sparked this post off is that I’m subscribed to a fabulous blog whose author does hilarious cartoons to illustrate her stories, and in one of her recent posts she describes a trip she and some friends took to New Zealand, a post I’m sure travellers to New Zealand will find quite useful. You can read it here:
Renting a campervan in New Zealand: Tips and tricks to avoiding utter chaos
Upon perusing this highly entertaining post, I realised that this gave me an opportunity to pass on what Kiwis want tourists to know when they come over here. Please don’t kill us!! This was my message on her post:
 “Kia ora Vy.
Well done for choosing the South Island to go to. All us kiwis ask tourists when we see them – ‘Are you going to the South Island? You HAVE to see the South Island while you’re here, it’s the best of New Zealand scenery!!’
I’m really sorry you got a lemon camper van – this is a good thing to know, so we can advise others ourselves.
A word to tourists heading our way – there is quite a big fuss being made in New Zealand at the moment about tourist drivers. Several have caused accidents lately that have killed New Zealanders, and we’re not very happy about that. Many kiwis are calling for a special driving test for overseas tourists before they can drive on our roads. Because they ARE very twisty and narrow a lot of the time, not what drivers from countries with straight roads and many lanes are used to. There are two things us locals want you to know:
PULL OVER!! If you have three or more cars behind you when you’re driving, pull over as soon as you can do so safely. You may be on holiday, but we’re probably trying to get to work. Not pulling over can cause people to get frustrated and do dangerous overtaking manoeuvres to get where they’re trying to go. Potential accident!
If you’re tired, DON’T DRIVE!! Tiredness can lead to you pulling out into wrong lanes in confusion. Potential accident!
We love having tourists here because we’re very proud of our country and want you to see it. But please don’t come over here and kill us. Thank you, and happy holidaying.
Regards, New Zealand locals. :D”
So that pretty much encapsulates what I’m trying to say here. There are only four million or so of us Kiwis, and it’s pretty sad to think of tourists coming over here to view our gorgeous scenery and bumping off us locals at the same time. So if you’re thinking of coming our way, please try to keep these things in mind – we’d really appreciate it.
Thanks and Welcome to New Zealand. 😀
PS: If you want to learn more about our country, here’s another post of mine that will give you a bit of info. Contains photos of gorgeous scenery. Please pull over before reading…
Beautiful New Zealand – My Middle Earth and a Habitat for Hobbits
One of locals in the midst of a strangulation fantasy…